Sometimes it takes time to sink in ...

Last night was the last class - at least, for now. I am sure that I will follow this class up with others. I really enjoyed it and I really want to stay with the 'Sketching and Drawing' thing. I know that what I have learned will help me as a photographer, but more so, it has reminded me of a time when I used to enjoy the process of creating 'art'. Of course, what I did so long ago was mostly charcoal and pastels, but the idea was there and I let it get away from me. Well, now I'm back and I intend to stay with it. I can see so many things in my head that I would like to be able to put to paper - learning the skills I am going to need to do these drawings is going to take time and effort but the end result - hopefully - will be worth all of it.

The class was devoted to texture and shading and then, toward the end, we started on a portrait. I have a picture of Papacito (my 89 year old father-in-law) which I like and that is the subject of the portrait I started working on. The drawing doesn't look like him, at all. That said, what I didn't understand or get to until after the class was that I should have tried to render the portrait using the texturing and shading techniques we had discussed earlier in the class. Instead, I went off in a feeble attempt at a contour-line based drawing that has no hope of ever looking like what I want it to look like. I think the term that comes to mind here is 'restatement'. I need to go back to that drawing and see the shading and texturing and express THAT and forget about drawing the contours of his face. But I should have caught that during class - not on the drive home. Sometimes, I guess, it just takes time to sink in.